Senators press Apple, Google for answers about location tracking

Representatives from Apple and Google appeared in front of the Senate …

Representatives from Apple and Google faced hard questions about their location and privacy policies when testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law on Tuesday. Apple VP of Software Technology Guy "Bud" Tribble and Google Director of Public Policy Alan Davidson both stood behind their companies' policies at the hearing, however, while continuing to insist that they take consumer privacy seriously.

"Each year, over 26,000 adults are stalked using GPS devices, including GPS devices on mobile phones. This is from 2006 when there were a third as many smartphones as there are today," Franken said at the beginning of the hearing. "The answer to this problem is not ending location-based services. No one up here wants to stop Apple or Google from producing their products or doing the incredible things that you do. What today is about is trying to find a balance between all those wonderful benefits and the public's right to privacy."

Tribble repeated many of Apple's statements from late April when the company finally addressed users' location tracking concerns—he reiterated that the company collects information on cell towers and WiFi hotspots in order to help get a lock on GPS more quickly when people are using iOS location services. He also repeated the careful semantics dance over the fact that Apple only collects location information for those hotspots and not the user's iPhone itself; a response that was met with frustration from Franken.

"Steve Jobs said to the press that 'we build a database of cell tower hotspots that could be 100 miles away from where you are, those are not telling you anything about your location.' Yet in a written statement, Apple explained that the very same data would help your iPhone calculate its location. How can those two statements be true at the same time? Does this data indicate anything about your location or doesn't it?" Franken shot back.

"The data that's stored in the database is the location of many WiFi hotspots and cell phone towers as we can have. That data does not actually contain any customer information at all; it's completely anonymous. It's only about the cell towers and WiFi hotspots," Tribble said. "When a portion of that database is downloaded onto your phone, your phone also knows which hotspots and cell phone towers it can receive right now. So a combination of the database and your phone knowing what it can receive right now is how the phone figures out where it is without the GPS."

Though Franken remained unimpressed, Tribble did point out that Apple has already fixed the "bug" that made iOS devices continue to log user locations WiFi hotspot and cell tower locations even after users turned location services off. Google, for its part, maintained its stance that all location services on Android devices are opt-in only, and that phones will not send any information to Google if users choose not to opt in. "We believe that this approach is essential for location services," Davidson told the Committee.

Despite the apparent lack of movement from either company on location tracking, the Committee took the opportunity to press Google and Apple over other topics, such as privacy policies to prevent third-party developers from abusing user information and the infamous DUI checkpoint apps on iOS and Android. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) demanded answers as to why neither company removed such apps from their respective app stores—especially since RIM already has—but both Davidson and Tribble said that their companies were still "looking into" the matter.